Movie Butt-Dialing Leads to 911 'Horror' Story

A Canadian mother called police this week after receiving a nightmarish call from her daughter, filled with blood-chilling screams and a man shouting murderous threats.

"The mom picked up the phone and heard lots of screaming, running, threatening comments. She panicked and when she couldn't reach her daughter called 911," said Constable Mike Russell, spokesman for the Victoria, B.C., police.

The mother told police she had recently had an argument with her teenage daughter, but did not know where she was.

Police discovered that the girl was at a movie theater in Victoria. Anticipating the worst, even an Aurora, Colo.-style attack, cops were preparing to descend on the cinema when a dispatcher tried calling the girl's cell phone one last time.

The girl answered her phone and explained she was not being attacked by a murderer, but was instead sitting in the audience watching the horror film "Cabin in the Woods."

The screams her mother had heard were just part of the movie.

"She seems to have pocket dialed her mom at the worst part of the movie," Russell said.

Though almost laughable in this case, pocket dialing is a real problem for police, Russell said. Since Jan. 1, British Columbia cops have received 828 abandoned calls to 911, many of which are the result of cell phone users dialing the emergency number without realizing it.